Federal politicians are like old T-shirts. Faded and familiar, we know them well — too well in some instances. Brian Topp, not so much. Mr. Topp announced his candidacy for the NDP leadership on Monday, the first contender to throw his hat in the ring. If you are wondering whom, exactly, Brian Topp is, don’t worry: you are not alone. Here, the Post’s Joe O’Connor offers six things you need to know about Brian Topp:

Cub reporter

He is 51, bilingual, a Montrealer and married with two kids. In his youth, he studied at McGill and worked at the student newspaper. The cub reporter, or so the legend according to Brian Topp goes, once asked Bob Rae a “disrespectful question.” Mr. Rae, at the time, was an NDP member of parliament.

Western alienation?

He’s from Quebec and lives in Ontario, but the West need not feel left out. Mr. Topp earned his political chops in Saskatchewan, working as Premier Roy Romanow’s deputy chief of staff from 1993 to 2000. He also helped engineer (plug your ears Stephen Harper) a coalition with the Saskatchewan Liberals that kept Romanow and Co. afloat.

Coalition comes to Ottawa

A consummate backroom operator, Mr. Topp became an influential cog, and conduit, in the negotiations between the Liberals, NDP and Bloc Québécois to form a (plug your ears Mr. Harper) coalition to replace the Conservatives in 2008-09. The insider then told all in a book, How We Almost Gave the Tories the Boot: The inside story behind the coalition. It includes some salacious tidbits about a scheming Mr. Rae, and the skulking Michael Ignatieff who ultimately scuttled the deal before getting dynamited in this year’s federal election.

Watching Jack’s back

Mr. Topp ran the NDP’s war room in the 1997 and 2004 campaigns before settling in as a senior adviser to Jack Layton, a post he occupied when the New Democrats scored the upset of the ages in May to become the Official Opposition. Six weeks later, Mr. Topp was elected party president. “He is one of the most principled and hard-working people I know,” Mr. Layton said at the time. “He’s been an integral part of our team for years and is just the person we need to bring us to the next level.”

Movie stars, venture capitalists and the rights of the working man

An author, a political operator and a blogger for the other national newspaper, Mr. Topp’s talents appear ubiquitous. He is an executive director of ACTRA Toronto, a union representing performance artists, and board member of ROI Funds — a venture capitalist firm with a billion dollars in assets.

Connected by cancer

Mr. Layton and his senior adviser had more to talk about than politics. In June, 2010, six months after the former NDP leader was diagnosed with prostate cancer, Mr. Topp received a similar diagnosis. His cancer, he says now, is a non-issue, otherwise he would not be running for the leadership. A year ago he wrote about it, eloquently, ending the dispatch with a quote from T.S. Eliot. “We shall not cease from exploration / And the end of all our exploring / Will be to arrive where we started / And know the place for the first time.”

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